The Story Girl
by Keita123
Summary: Strange happenings started to happen in Gensokyo. Usually, it was a sign of an incident, one that would be solved by the shrine maiden. However, the culprit this time was nothing like the others. She was as elusive as the wind, and as mysterious as the stars. She was known as "The Story Girl", and this is her tale.
1. The Story Girl

When Cirno woke up that morning, the forest was covered with a cool fog, making her want to return to her slumber once more. And she would very well have done so if not for the fact that she heard a very peculiar voice coming from below her treehouse.

It was a very peculiar voice indeed. Cirno had never heard such a sweet and charming voice like that before. The night sparrow's voice was nothing compared to it. It recited a poem about the majesty of the emerald forest, the glitter of morning dews that shone beyond any diamonds ever worn by princesses, the pulsing heartbeat of the beasts and bugs of the land. And, most importantly for her, the beauty of the dancing fairies on the lake.

Now, she was never big on dancing herself, but she could agree with the "beauty" part.

Demanding to be satisfied, her curiosity carried her nimble body towards the voice. And the more she got close to the voice, the more she felt as if she was hearing the Goddess of Poetry herself, gracing her insignificant self with her presence.

The source of the voice turned out to be a girl, around fourteen or fifteen in human age. Her appearance was nothing special, with a dull brown hair and a dull dress, complete with a pair of dull hazel eyes, which quite disappointed her since she had expected a beautiful face behind the beautiful voice. When she noticed her presence, she stopped her recital, bringing her soul back from the heavenly clouds.

"Oh, hello little fairy."

Normally, she would object strongly to being called that. However, when she called her that with that voice, it just felt right, as if it was a honest praise instead of a mockery.

"Uh, hello," she replied back, still not sure what to say to her.

"What is your name?"

"Cirno! The strongest fairy in Gensokyo!" she said proudly. For some reason, she felt obligated to impress this person more than anyone else.

"Then, Cirno. Would you like to hear a story? Today is a dreadfully dull day and I haven't gotten anyone else to play with. I promise it's an interesting one."

Being asked with a voice like that, who could resist?

"Wonderful. Now, let's see, which one should I tell?"

She opened her book she had carried with her, which Cirno, oddly enough, didn't notice before, and flipped through its pages, until she said "This one would be nice", stopping on a certain page.

She sat down on the wet grass, Cirno hovering near her, looking at the words written in the page. She couldn't read it however.

"Once upon a time, there was a little fairy living on a forest..."

* * *

><p>"Achoo!"<p>

Meiling sniffed. She didn't like this weather. Not in the slightest.

She had hoped that at least the fog would go away, but alas, after standing here for three hours it seemed the heavens had no plan to change their "chilly morning with a fog" schedule.

"Come on, Meiling, stay positive!" she thought to herself. "At least with this weather, no one would come to the Mansion and you could just take it easy for the rest of the day!"

Her newfound optimism was soon dashed however, as a cold gust of wind blowed at her.

"Brrr, what's wrong with this weather? It's not even winter yet and it's already this cold!"

Her question was soon answered. By five icicles heading straight towards her face.

Without delay, her lightning-quick reflexes worked their magic. She blocked the first one and punched the other four, shattering them to pieces before they could hit their bullseye.

"Not bad! Not bad at all!"

She heard clapping coming from the fog in front of her, followed by a familiar figure stepping out from the shadows.

It was Cirno. She was with her usual self-satisfied expression that she had seen many times, mostly when she challenged her to a spellcard duel, which usually ended up with her running away (or "doing a strategic retreat" as she would say) while swearing she would win the next time they fought. However, Meiling found she was somewhat… different today. She couldn't exactly tell you where however.

"Hey, what was that for?"

"Oh, that? That was just a simple morning greeting. You know, just in case you were sleeping on your job again."

As she thought, there was indeed something strange about the fairy. She wouldn't just break the spellcard rule willy-nilly like that. As stupid as she was, she was not stupid enough to do one of the unforgivable things to do in Gensokyo. Not if she didn't want to earn the wrath of the shrine maiden herself.

"Go home. I'm in no mood to play with you today."

"Oh? Well, that's unfortunate. Because I'm in a _perfectly _good mood for that."

Without warning, the fairy dashed towards her, each hand holding a blade made out of ice that she had manifested in a split second it took to reach her position.

She failed to disarm the first blade coming towards her, blocking it with her elbows instead. It pierced through her skin, earning a yelp of pain from the gatekeeper. The second blade she knocked off course with her palm, flinching the ice fairy and buying her the window she needed for a counterattack. She did a high kick with her right foot, hitting her straight in her stomach. The fairy was sent back a few feet away from her, but not too far where she couldn't follow up with her Rainbow Fist coming from her still-bleeding right hand. It connected right under her jaw, sending the fairy upwards a few feet more. However, before she could finish her with her famed Rainbow Kick, the fairy formed an ice shield around her. It shattered when her feet connected with it, but the damage had already been done.

"Ice shotgun!"

Three giant icicles Cirno fired off point-blank at her. And all three pierced through her body.

"Gah!"

Meiling was in pain. She hadn't felt pain this intense in a long while, not when she did all her battles in spellcard rules designed to prevent things like this.

Not giving up, she countered by firing off a swarm of rainbow-colored bullets from her hands. Unfortunately for her, Cirno had erected her ice shield once again, this time absorbing the blows without a single scratch.

Meiling fell into the ground, with Cirno floating smugly above her.

"So, ready to give up and admit that you're weaker than me, the strongest in Gensokyo?"

Meiling could feel her consciousness going away. If she couldn't somehow turn the tables back now, she would really lose.

And she couldn't bear losing to a fairy. She would really be a failure of a gatekeeper if that were to happen.

Then, she remembered. The technique she had developed yet abandoned because of its awful strain to her body. The last time she used it she could only stay conscious afterwards for one minute. And considering her weakened body right now, she doubted she could maintain it for more than ten seconds.

But then, ten seconds were more than enough.

"Hey, what's the matter? You sleeping or something? I said are you ready to give up already?"

She spread her energy, or _chi_ as her martial arts doctrine would call it, around her entire body. She forced it to seep through every single muscle in her body, strengthening them to beyond their normal limits.

And then, she moved.

She rose with a quick flip, surprising the ice fairy who was more than assured of her victory over her. Then, without waiting for her reaction, she unleashed her Rainbow Fist at her. But not just one. Or two. Or three. Or even four. It was a flurry of unrelenting punches. Her ice shield would stand no chance even if she had the time to create it, and the fairy could only watch as her body was crushed mercilessly.

In a mere five seconds, Cirno was defeated.

The fairy lied battered on the ground, Meiling watching her with panting breath.

"So that's it, huh? How disappointing. This won't do at all for my story. Won't do at all."

Meiling quickly rose her guard once again. Another one? But she didn't recognize the voice.

"Who are you? Show yourself!" she shouted.

"Now, now, my little gatekeeping youkai. Be patient. Patience is a virtue after all. Or, do your mother not teach you that?"

Cirno's body began to melt, to the horror of Meiling, its moisture floating and forming a figure on the air before freezing into ice crystals. Then the ice crystals shattered, revealing a girl she had never seen before in Gensokyo.

"You… just who are…"

"Satisfied, now that you have a good look at me?" The girl giggled, with a giggle of a mother who heard her child making a cutely naive remark.

Meiling suddenly felt she was being very stupid.

"Now, on to main course." She took away her gaze from Meiling as she skipped around, as if Meiling wasn't even there. "You see, I'd like you to announce to this world's inhabitants that they have won the joyous privilege of being told in my eternal and everlasting tales. Now, now, don't make such a boorish face, it is not in your tale to understand mine."

Meiling, once again, felt really stupid. There was something about her voice that made her believe her words, even though they were insulting her.

"Oh, and because it would be terribly inconvenient for you to not know what to call me with, you can call me 'The Story Girl'. I've forgotten my own name a long time ago."

Before she could bring her lips to ask all the questions stuck in her mind, the girl melted into a puddle of water just like Cirno did, only this time the water didn't rise up again.

And then, Meiling's technique started to take its toll. Her muscles relaxed to the point where she fell into the wet grass straight away.

"The… Story… Girl? Just… who… is…"

Then, the world turned black.


	2. The Little Dryad

When the maid told her what happened with the gatekeeper, Reimu didn't believe it at first. How could she? She knew the fairy had never owned a mind brighter than a toad's, but for her to break the spellcard rule? Unthinkable. Simply unthinkable.

But then, she knew Sakuya was never the one to tell jokes.

"Fine, I'll look into it." She promised though she really didn't want to. Alas, the maid wouldn't budge from her seat without her giving those sweet words.

Now, she's stuck outside of her her beloved futon and kotatsu, her home sweet home, faced with this awful, awful weather.

"Brrr, this is too cold. And we're not even on winter yet."

As she flew through the bitter winds, her destination being Cirno's home which she figured should be somewhere on the forest near the lake, she thought of what she should do with the little scamp. Of course, she would punish her, that much is obvious. But the problem was, what punishment would be fitting for a fairy? Sure, she could just shoot her to 'death', but fairies always regenerated. She would be perfectly fine the next day. Sealing? Sure, she could do that. But she felt it lacked the 'oomph' really needed for it to be a fitting punishment for breaking the spellcard rule. Make her do all the chores she postponed for the last month - those dishes wouldn't wash themselves after all - would be more of a punishment to her than to the fairy since she had a pretty good hunch she would end up making a mess of everything than actually cleaning them. A lecture by the hakutaku? She heard Keine had been itching to try to put something into that pea-brained fairy for a long time.

Oh well, the punishment could wait. For now, the important thing was to meet with the culprit first.

She landed on her destinated woods, She had not seen any signs of the ice fairy, or any other fairies for that matter. She wasn't surprised however. With this weather, she'd bet they were all sleeping soundly in their treehouses like the carefree beings they were.

"Guess I'll have to use these then."

She summoned her needles, spreading them without a care in the world on every tree she saw. Each of them contained a small amount of anti-youkai aura in them, weak enough to not harm but is enough to make weak youkai felt uncomfortable. She thought she would just make her came out flying from her tree.

And so she went. Pity to the poor birds and squirrels who were unfortunate enough to live in trees Reimu set her sight to. Pity to the small and often forgotten insect youkai who were to leave their homes without having a choice in the matter.

After a half hour of Reimu's sudden and forced relocation however, the fairy was still nowhere near her sight, earning a frustrated sight from the now more-than-irked shrine maiden.

"Alright, Cirno. Come out! I promise I won't do anything to you! I just want to talk!"

"She won't come if you still wear that scary smile of yours, you know."

Instinctively, she turned to the direction the voice came from.

Leaves, converging in the air as if they were doing a dance whom only the beasts of the forest would understand.

Reimu took action immediately. She fired off her needles at the leaves, simply because her always faithful intuition told so.

And indeed, her intuition was right. For before her needles reached the target, a girl formed out of the leaves; the needles becoming her welcoming flower confetti with a wave of her dainty little hand.

"Now that was impolite. Haven't your mother told you any manners?"

The girl casually waved her hand once more, this time shaping a chair by the suddenly overgrown grass below her. Sitting on it, she snatched a tiny leaf as it was falling to the ground. Without warning, the leaf transfigured itself into a book, which she now held on her hand.

Reimu didn't even need to ask. Her attitude was reason enough for her intuition to tell that she was an enemy.

"So, I suppose you're the 'Story Girl' that gatekeeper met with?"

"Indeed. And I also suppose that you are Reimu Hakurei, the famed Shrine Maiden of Gensokyo."

"So," she wore her I'm-going-to-beat-the-crap-out-of-you smile, "which one do you prefer? Beaten up with the spellcard rule or beaten up without one?"

The girl didn't answer. She instead beckoned to the nearby squirrel, which had been hiding in a nearby tree, probably sensing the incoming inevitable fight between the two. The squirrel crawled to her hand, along her arm and eventually climbing her ear and settling on the top of her head.

"Now who's being impolite?" Reimu retorted.

"Ah, I apologize." The girl returned her sight at her. "It's simply that, I don't see why I should prioritize you over this poor little creature on the top of my head. She was separated with her husband and children, you see, and she also didn't quite remember how to get to her home."

Reimu wasn't sure what to make of that. Was she mocking her? But her voice sounded really genuine, as if she really believed what she just spoke.

"Oh well, you oughtn't worry, Ms. Squirrel. I shall write it in my story that you shall safely return to your family."

"And that the culprit responsible for this tragedy shall be punished."

She snapped her fingers. Without warning, vines jotted out from the ground. They wrapped themselves around Reimu's arms and legs.

Before she could be overwhelmed however, Reimu flew off the ground, channeling her divine energy to strengthen her muscles, aiding her escape from the girl's immobilizing attack.

"Fine! No spellcard rule then!" Reimu shouted. "Fantasy Seal!"

She summoned her famed multi colored orbs around her, before she sent her at the girl.

"The wicked shrine maiden sent her wicked attacks to the good dryad. But the dryad didn't falter, for her blood and flesh was the forest itself. And the forest was on her side."

Moving her hands towards her chest, she covered herself with a cocoon made of leaves. Reimu's orbs stroke the cocoon mercilessly, but it didn't even flinch to the attack.

"Humph, you're a tough one, aren't you? No ordinary youkai could ever stood to my Fantasy Seal like that. Then, how about this one? Evil-sealing circle!"

A barrier appeared encapsulating the cocoon. Next, it shrank, pressing on the cocoon's tough exterior. The technique's main draw was its ability to harm and weaken whatever was inside of it. Anything, even when you were protected by the toughest armor that existed. Indeed, its power could bypass through anything.

"So, how about you just give up already? No youkai had ever escaped that ability of mine, you know," Reimu bragged, conveniently leaving the fact that a couple of youkai had indeed escaped from her barrier, either by their own special ability or simply by their pure, unadulterated strength.

And the girl chose the latter.

The cocoon suddenly disintegrated, leaving the girl hiding inside exposed once more. However, this time, the girl had gained quite some significant change to her looks. She now sported a pair of beautiful butterfly wings and a pair of butterfly antennae jutting from her forehead, with the squirrel nowhere in her sight.

With a swipe of her hand, she shattered the barrier with a single swing.

"The dryad was reborn, becoming ever more beautiful than before. Mother Nature had blessed her, and no other greater power would ever be achieved, for she now possessed the power of all things that lived and thrived off the land. From the littlest ant to the proudest lion, all cheered on her to defeat the wicked maiden that trampled on their forest."

The girl vanished.

Next, a slap, straight to Reimu's right cheek.

"W-wha-"

The force was so strong it sent Reimu straight to the ground. Not waiting for her to recover, the girl summoned a surge of roots that wrapped around her, binding her along with the soft grasses.

"The wicked maiden fell, her foolish pride disappeared to the four winds. Battered and broken, she now realized the error of her ways. She could only hope for forgiveness as the forest passed judgment upon her."

Reimu, at that point, was actually surprised. She had done wrong to underestimate the girl. She should've went all out from the get-go.

Oh well, it's not like something she couldn't fix right away.

She focused her mind, imagining the space behind where the girl were currently floating gleefully over her. With one uninterrupted move, she "grabbed" said space, "pulling" it towards the space where she was currently in. Quickly, she shaped the space as close as she could get like the shape of her own body.

"Here is where the wicked maiden shall have her eternal slumber. Never again shall she disturbs the peace of the forest."

Then, Reimu disappeared.

When the girl realized what was going on, Reimu's feet had already landed on the back of her head.

"You-!"

The girl fell down from the sky, her defenses caught off-guard by Reimu's surprise attack. She, however, quickly counterattacked, by commanding the leaves of all nearby trees to attack Reimu.

However, Reimu disappeared once more.

And once again, she was caught off-guard. This time, Reimu kicked her head to the side from behind, nearly snapping it from its rightful place.

"How did you-?!"

Panicked, she quickly decided that she had to retreat for the time being.

As Reimu executed her third blow, the girl's body disappeared, replaced by yellow-brown autumn leaves. Her dropkick had failed to hit its mark.

Reimu gazed on her surroundings. No sign of the girl anywhere.

Great. She ran away.

She hoped she could solve this incident today. She doubted the girl had learnt her place yet so she still needed to beat the lesson in to her big head some more.

And she kept the hunch that she would still cause many troubles in the future.

Oh well, let the future stay in the future, she thought. She wasn't in the mood to pursue the girl any further, at least not today.

And so, Reimu returned home, only later on realizing that she had forgotten entirely about her original goal of finding the ice fairy; the fact that she quickly ignored once she entered the warmth and comfort of her kotatsu once more.

As for the girl, well, she had learned that she had been underestimating the denizens of Gensokyo.

And she would make sure it would never happen again.


End file.
